Oracle 18c

Behavior Change in Oracle 18c/19c: No symbolic links for Data Pump directories

Posted on July 15, 2019 by Behavior Change 4

Most of you may have recognized the desupport of UTL_FILE_DIR with Oracle Database 18c. Reason is mostly that UTL_FILE_DIR opens a lot of possibilities to do insecure things. But this has another effect which may not be obvious to you. There’s a behavior change in Oracle 18c/19c: No symbolic links for Data Pump directories. Read further to learn more about it.

UTL_FILE_DIR Desupport

In Oracle Database 18c we announced the desupport of UTL_FILE_DIR initialization parameter. But as you can read as well in the Database Upgrade Guide, there’s this remark:

UTL_FILE Package Symbolic Link in Directory Paths Not Supported

… [ Read more ]

A new version (June 2019) of the AutoUpgrade is available for download

Posted on June 25, 2019 by AutoUpgrade 0

My team mates worked very hard – and many customers did the same. Thanks for all your feedbacks. We tried to help and assist everybody where possible. And here it is. A new version (June 2019) of the AutoUpgrade is available for download.

A new version of the AutoUpgrade is available for download

Download the new AutoUpgrade

Please download the newest version 20190620 of the AutoUpograde from:

and replace your current version with the new one (20190620..

The new version has 51 additional fixes. At the end of MOS Note: you’ll find a list of bugs fixed on X64_190620 update file.

Where

… [ Read more ]

When and how should you change COMPATIBLE?

Posted on April 17, 2019 by Best Practice 6

When and how should you change COMPATIBLE?

COMPATIBLE is an almost mystic parameter. It has a default setting for each release. But if you try to find more information what it really does, you won’t be very happy. And in reply to my previous blog post about whether you need to change COMPATIBLE when you apply an RU, I received the following question: When and how should you change COMPATIBLE?

What does COMPATIBLE do?

To find an answer to this question, I consulted the documentation at first. And I found this:

  • COMPATIBLE
    Setting COMPATIBLE ensures that new features do not write data formats or structures
… [ Read more ]

Oracle 18c Express Edition (XE) for Windows is available

Posted on February 21, 2019 by Oracle Database 18c 2

Oracle 18c Express Edition (XE) for Windows is availableOracle 18c Express Edition (XE) for Windows is available for download as of now. Oracle XE 18c on other platforms is available since November 2018. As of now you can download the Windows version as well.

Use the Quick Start guide which explains the installation and how to connect to the database.

General availability of Oracle Database 18c Express Edition on Windows!

Whether you are a developer, a DBA, a data scientist, an educator, or just curious about databases, Oracle Database 18c Express Edition (XE) is the ideal way to get started. You will get the same powerful Oracle … [ Read more ]

How long will Oracle Database 12.2 be supported?

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Release Schedule 5

This question sounds very simple: How long will Oracle Database 12.2 be supported? Right? But I learned at a customer site recently that the information about the support periods for Oracle 12.2 may puzzle people sometimes. Hence I thought some clarification may be useful.

Lifetime Support Policy Brochure

First of all, when you have a look into the Lifetime Support Policy brochure the answer you’ll read there is:

  • Premier Support until March 2023
  • Extended Support until March 2026

How long will Oracle Database 12.2 be supported?

But this doesn’t give you any distinction between Oracle 12.2.0.1, Oracle 18c and Oracle 19c. These three releases fall under the Oracle … [ Read more ]

Happy New Year 2019 to all of you!

Posted on January 7, 2019 by General 2

Happy New Year 2019 to all of you! And thanks for reading the blog. And thanks also for the warm feedback you gave me in the past 20 months since I started this blog on a new platform.

Happy New Year 2019 to all of you!

Photo by Trent Szmolnik on Unsplash

I wish you all a very good start into the new year. If you wonder why I post this while the year is already 7 days old, we Germans have a lot of holidays – and this season it was pretty attractive to take two weeks off with just spending 5 vacation days. Hence, my working … [ Read more ]

Premier Support Extension for Oracle 19c – and more

Posted on December 14, 2018 by Release Schedule 2

Wait a bit. Oracle Database 19c is not out yet (only in beta right now) but how can we initiate a Premier Support Extension for Oracle 19c already? Well, Oracle 12.2.0.1, Oracle 18c and Oracle 19c all together sail under the cover of the “Oracle 12.2 Release Family” and hence have a common support frame.

What has been announced?

The single-source-of-truth MOS Note:742060.1 got updated. Roy tweeted about it already. And the major change in the note is the extension of the Premier Support for Oracle 19c until March 2023. That is one year more than it was … [ Read more ]

Direct INSERTs into HCC tables may be slower since Oracle 12.2

Posted on November 28, 2018 by Flaws and Pitfalls 2

I work with several customers at the moment on their Oracle 12.2/18c “go live” projects. And one of these customers encountered a strange issue when comparing Oracle 11.2.0.4 to Oracle 12.2.0.1/18.3.0: Direct INSERTs into HCC tables may be slower since Oracle 12.2. Actually in this particular case, significantly slower. Read below why this can happen and how the workarounds look like.

Hybrid Columnar Compression

There’s a lot of material to read and study about Hybrid Columnar Compression (HCC). With HCC we store the same column for a group of rows together. The data block does not store data in row-major … [ Read more ]

To which release should you upgrade to? Plus: Extended Support?

Posted on October 18, 2018 by Release Schedule 6

To which release should you upgrade to? Plus: Extended Support?

A few days ago I blogged about the Current Support Status for Oracle Database Releases. And you’ve sent several questions to me. Some asked about clarification to which release should you upgrade to? Plus: Extended Support questions were quite frequent. So let me clarify this previous blog post a bit.

To which release should you upgrade to?

A few weeks ago we initiated global communication to all customers who had opened an SR within the past 3 years explaining to which release you should upgrade to. Just in case you haven’t seen this communication, I will give you more … [ Read more ]

New Oracle Database Upgrade Lab for Oracle 18.3.0

Posted on October 2, 2018 by Hands-On Lab 6

New Oracle Database Upgrade Lab for Oracle 18.3.0

Our new and updated Oracle Database Upgrade Hands-On Lab for Oracle 18.3.0 is finally live and can be downloaded via this link:

What’s new?

Of course, Oracle 18.3.0 is inside to upgrade to. But we changed the entire instructions set a bit. We included a simple load generator. And we added way more performance stuff. And of course fallback. As soon as Oracle 18.4.0 becomes available, patching will be included in the instructions as well. Everybody should have used OPatch at least once 🙂

What’s in

… [ Read more ]

Oracle 12.2 and higher: Set _cursor_obsolete_threshold to old default

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Parameters 12

Sometimes development groups change default parameter settings because it fits well for a specific feature. This has happened with _cursor_obsolete_threshold in Oracle Database 12.2. But there’s now an official recommendation for Oracle 12.2 and higher: Set _cursor_obsolete_threshold to old default.

What is _cursor_obsolete_threshold?

First of all, this is obviously an underscore parameter. And usually the policy is: Don’t change underscore parameters unless either you clearly understand what you are changing. Or unless Oracle Support (or another Oracle authority) advises you to do.

Oracle 12.2 and higher: Set _cursor_obsolete_threshold to old default

Photo by Jakub Gorajek on Unsplash

We introduced this parameter in Oracle 11.2.0.3 for an issue of growing … [ Read more ]

Oracle Database 18c on-prem for MS Windows is available

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Oracle Database 18c 0

I know it got delayed a bit. But there’s a good reason for the delay. In addition, my post is a bit late as well but I was on vacation. Anyway, you can download it since Aug 22, 2018. Oracle Database 18c on-prem for MS Windows is available.

Oracle Database 18c on-prem for MS Windows is available

Oracle Database 18c on-prem for MS Windows is available

You can download it from oracle.com and eDelivery:

Start here with the Oracle 18c on Windows Installation Guide.

As far as I see, the certification information has not been … [ Read more ]

RMAN Backup Gives RMAN-06091: No Channel Allocated for Maintenance

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Flaws and Pitfalls RMAN 16

RMAN Backup Gives RMAN-06091: No Channel Allocated for MaintenanceI really don’t want to turn this blog into an accumulation of issues and flaws. But as I explained many times before, the blog for me is also a way to dump information I likely will need the sooner or later again.

Recently I blogged about another RMAN issue in Oracle 12.2.0.1 with traces. This was fixed with the July 2018 RU for Oracle 12.2.0.1. But the issue below about which Piero Ferraz from Brazil alerted me (thanks!!!), happens in exactly this RU.

RMAN Backup Gives RMAN-06091: No Channel Allocated for Maintenance

This issue gets introduced with the July … [ Read more ]

Oracle Multimedia is deprecated in Oracle 18c

Posted on August 10, 2018 by Deprecated / Desupported 4

While I was writing the blog post about Creating CDBs and non-CDBs with less options I realized that Oracle Multimedia is deprecated in Oracle 18c – but I haven’t mentioned this here yet.

Oracle Multimedia is deprecated in Oracle 18c

Oracle Multimedia was called Oracle Intermedia a long time ago when we introduced it back in the Oracle 8i days.

Oracle Multimedia is deprecated in Oracle 18c

I don’t know how many people really used it, but it is part of a standard installation if you didn’t explicitly turned it off or deinstalled it.

And from Oracle 18c on, Oracle Multimedia is deprecated. Meaning, it won’t develop … [ Read more ]

Oracle Database 18.3.0 on SPARC Solaris is available

Posted on August 3, 2018 by Release Schedule 2

Usually I don’t post twice on a day, especially not on a Friday and not in the holiday season. But since last night, Aug 2, Oracle Database 18.3.0 on SPARC Solaris is available for download from OTN.

Oracle Database 18.3.0 on SPARC Solaris is available

Oracle Database 18.3.0 on SPARC Solaris is availableOracle Database 18.3.0 on SPARC Solaris is available

You can download it from OTN:

And I couldn’t find it on eDelivery – where I find only the 18.1.0 version. But I simply may be not clever enough to use the right search phrase (I used “Oracle Database” as “18” leads to something different).

Further Information

… [ Read more ]

Drop public synonym XMLCONCAT prior to upgrade

Posted on August 2, 2018 by Flaws and Pitfalls 0

Thanks to my team mates, Cindy and Hector, who alerted me on this newly detected issue. When your database has been upgraded from release to release, it could happen that a public synonym XMLCONCAT exists. And before you upgrade to Oracle 12.2.01 or Oracle 18c you must drop this public synonym to avoid upgrade errors.

Drop public synonym XMLCONCAT prior to upgrade

The public synonym XMLCONCAT in pre-9.2.0.2 Oracle databases pointed to a PL/SQL function of the same name. In 9.2.0.2, this PL/SQL function was changed to a C function.The public synonym was no longer needed nor pointing to a … [ Read more ]

Clarification: Support Periods for Oracle 12.2.0.1 and 18c

Posted on July 30, 2018 by Release Schedule 10

Monday morning, another way-too-hot July day. Summer is crazy this year in Europe. We all enjoy nice sunny weather but nobody does enjoy a serious drought. Nowhere. While going through my inbox I spot this statement: ““Why should we go to 18.x with support till 2020?“. And this is not an unusual question. But I think I should write a Clarification: Support Periods for Oracle 12.2.0.1 and 18c. I receive plenty of such questions in the past weeks. And actually many from my colleagues.

Clarification: Support Periods for Oracle 12.2.0.1 and 18c

First of all, your Single … [ Read more ]

Oracle 18.3.0 on premises includes 1.4GB patches?

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Oracle Database 18c 13

Oracle Database 18.3.0 on premises is available for download on Linux since July 23, 2018. The other ports will follow soon. And via twitter I received a question why Oracle 18.3.0 on premises includes 1.4GB patches?

Oracle 18.3.0 on premises includes 1.4GB patches?

When you unzip the downloaded database image:

Oracle 18.3.0 on premises includes 1.4GB patches?

then you may discover the following folder .patch_storage of 1.4GB size:

[oracle@localhost .patch_storage]$ ls -lrt
total 40
drwxr-xr-x. 4 oracle dba 4096 Jul 18 19:39 28090523_Jul_14_2018_00_03_50
drwxr-xr-x. 4 oracle dba 4096 Jul 18 19:40 28090553_Jul_11_2018_19_20_31
drwxr-xr-x. 4 oracle dba 4096 Jul 18 19:41 27923415_Jul_15_2018_10_33_22
drwxr-xr-x. 8 oracle dba 4096
… [ Read more ]

Oracle Database 18.3.0 installation on premises

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Installation 6

Oracle Database 18.3.0 installation on premisesOracle Database 18.3.0 is available on Linux since July 23, 2018. And I wanted to quickly sneak into the Oracle Database 18.3.0 installation on premises. I did blog about the Oracle 18c installation a few weeks ago but this was a plain 18.1.0. This time I install the 18.3.0 on-prem edition for Linux.

Oracle Database 18.3.0 installation on premises

Are the any differences between an 18.1.0 and the 18.3.0 installation? No, there aren’t any (at least not anything I recognized). The most important thing: you must unzip the downloaded file into your future destination directory.

In my case I … [ Read more ]

ZDLRA ready for Oracle Database 18c

Posted on July 23, 2018 by MAA RMAN 7

ZDLRA is one of the best acronyms ever. It took me 5+ years to not mix up the sequence of characters 🙂 And even Larry made a joke about the name a while ago at his OOW keynote (I think it was 2016). ZDLRA stands for Zero Data Loss Recovery Appliance. And that basically tells you what it is. Hence, it isn’t a bad acronym as it tells you straight forward what it does. Good news: ZDLRA ready for Oracle Database 18c.

ZDLRA ready for Oracle Database 18c

ZDLRA ready for Oracle Database 18cWhy am I writing about this? Some of the customers … [ Read more ]

Long Identifiers in Oracle 12.2 may cause trouble

Posted on July 3, 2018 by Uncategorized 6

LONG identifiers are one of the key features in Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. But as I learned the other day, you should be a bit careful when you exchange data between different databases. In certain situations, Long Identifiers in Oracle 12.2 may cause trouble.

What are Long Identifiers?

Long identifiers get introduced with Oracle Database 12.2.0.1. For ages, you could name a table or a column or a user or a package in Oracle with only 30 byte length. Hence, naming a table TAB_THIS_IS_MY_TABLE_AND_I_LIK is ok (30 byte – 30 characters) but naming it TAB_THIS_IS_MY_TABLE_AND_I_LIKE_IT is not possible as it requires … [ Read more ]

_optimizer_ignore_hints is now optimizer_ignore_hints

Posted on June 25, 2018 by Optimizer Parameters 3

I’m refreshing our Hands-On Lab for Oracle Database 18c. And as part of a performance evaluation I wanted to set an underscore parameter to ignore all hints my load test tool sets. But then I learned: This does not work anymore as _optimizer_ignore_hints is now optimizer_ignore_hints. We made the underscore obsolete in Oracle Database 18c.

_optimizer_ignore_hints is now optimizer_ignore_hints

_optimizer_ignore_hints is now optimizer_ignore_hints

Actually in Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 you can find a long list of obsolete parameters here:

To be precise: We obsoleted159 parameters. In addition, in Oracle Database 18c we added an additional … [ Read more ]

Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Patch Recommendation 5

In this part of my blog post series about upgrading from Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle 18c I’d like to demonstrate patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises.Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

A while ago I showed also how to patch from Oracle 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 in the Oracle Cloud.

Find the related blog posts here:

Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

Before I can start patching to the Release Update Oracle 18.2.0 I need to download the patch … [ Read more ]

Installing Oracle Database 18c

Posted on June 20, 2018 by Installation 4

Installing Oracle Database 18cThis blog post about Installing Oracle Database 18c applies to all Oracle 18c releases. I wrote a while ago about one very important change:

and explained that the installation is now image based. You’ll find other posts as part of my series on how to install and upgrade to Oracle Database 18c here:

Installing Oracle Database 18c

Oracle Database 18c on-premises is supposed to be generally available with the July 2018 … [ Read more ]

Upgrade Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle Database 18c on-premises

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Upgrade / Migration 6

Upgrade Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle Database 18c on-premisesI’m currently refreshing our Hands-On Lab and will exchange Oracle 12.2.0.1 with Oracle 18.2.0. This blog post series is about how to Upgrade to Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle Database 18c on-premises. There are other blog posts available you may use by yourself if you plan to refresh the lab by yourself until we uploaded a newer version. And it’s actually a good exercise.

For Multitenant upgrades from Oracle 12.1.0.2 to Oracle 12.2.0.1 you may read this:

… [ Read more ]

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